RELATIONSHIPS : Working Together Can Bolster Bond, Couples Say : Husbands and wives who are happily in business together admit that keeping their personal and professional relationships in balance can be tricky.

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Working for--or with--your spouse can be risky. Especially when one is in a position to give orders to the other. Although many such situations end in disaster, some couples are able to collaborate in their careers in ways that add spark to both their marriage and their work.

Three Orange County couples who are happily in business together admit that keeping their personal and professional relationships in balance can be tricky. All three say they have been able to manage it because they’ve found they are as compatible at work as they are at home.

David and Geraldine Sandor of Irvine have been partners in marriage for 25 years and partners in the same law firm--Simon, McKinsey, Miller, Zommick, Sandor & Dundas of Irvine and Long Beach--since 1980. They never doubted that they could work comfortably in the same firm because they had gone through law school together, and, Geri explains, “if you can withstand the pressures of law school together, you can stand anything.”

But they have set limits to make sure their working relationship doesn’t get too close for comfort. For example, they don’t work on the same cases, and they don’t see each other on the job every day because David often goes to the firm’s Long Beach office while Geri stays in Irvine.

They do have lunch together about twice a week, however, and at home they help each other prepare for their biggest courtroom challenges by serving as sounding boards, with one playing judge while the other tests arguments.

They both specialize in family law, so they see a lot of messy divorce cases. And that, they say, has been good for their marriage.

“It gives us a better perspective on when to argue and when not to,” Geri says. “You learn that some things aren’t as important as you think they are at the moment.”

David adds: “You tend to appreciate what you’ve got more.”

Working together, Geri says, “makes you a lot more attuned to the pressures the other person is under.”

“We’re tired out for the same reason,” David notes, admitting that he was less empathic--and they had more spats--when their two sons were young and Geri was postponing her career to be with them. Now he can truly understand her fatigue, he says.

The Sandors enjoy seeing each other around the office and the courthouse, but they say it wouldn’t work if they didn’t respect each other’s style--hers is intense, his laid-back--and keep their sense of humor.

Also crucial, David says, is the fact that they are more than partners in marriage and law.

“We like each other,” he says. “We’re good friends.”

Roby and Lawreen Gallagher--marriage, family and child counselors who practice together in Tustin--recently celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary by renewing their vows. The success of their marriage is particularly important to their work because they specialize in domestic violence. They feel they are better able to help abusers and victims as a couple because they represent a positive role model--and the chemistry between them adds a special dimension to the group therapy sessions they lead together.

“Apart we can do some good. Together, something special happens,” Lawrie says. “We have lots of shared experience and trust and communication between us, so we have that richness to bring to therapy.”

They always sit across from each other during group therapy sessions so they can maintain eye contact, which helps them shift directions as needed when one gives the other a subtle clue.

Like the Sandors, they have learned from their clients. Counseling abusers and victims provides a constant reminder of the wrong ways to communicate in a marriage, which, the Gallaghers agree, spurs them to keep working on their own relationship.

Both Roby and Lawreen have other jobs--he’s a Los Angeles County probation officer, she’s a nurse in the Fullerton Joint Union High School District--but they moonlight together as counselors on weeknights and weekends.

The Gallaghers, who went to college at night together for eight years to get their counseling credentials, say working in tandem might put a strain on their marriage if they didn’t make an effort to spend time apart in ways that help them feel refreshed when they return to each other.

Lawrie has dinner every Friday with a support group she formed so she and other professional women would have a place to unwind. “It helps me dump stuff so I can come back to Roby with a clean slate. I realized long ago that Roby couldn’t meet all my needs. That’s an unrealistic burden on a marriage,” she says.

Roby has his own support network--friends with whom he has breakfast regularly and goes to ballgames “to escape from all this serious stuff” he faces in his work.

Both have learned to respect the signals at home that indicate one or the other wants privacy--and doesn’t want to talk about work.

To unwind together, they often take short trips to the mountains, because getting away makes it easier to let go of work.

“We get very tired, which means not as much time and energy for each other,” Lawrie says. “We have to set aside time for play or it doesn’t happen.”

Michael and Judi Lapin of Corona del Mar also take short trips together as often as possible because, Judi says, “we almost have to go away to really get away from work.”

That’s because Michael is president and Judi is vice president of their own property management company, Shoreline Centers Inc., which operates Shoreline Village in Long Beach as well as other shopping centers.

“The biggest problem in working together is bringing it home,” Judi says.

They do much of their planning and reflecting over dinner, and they even feel free to offer each other criticism--carefully, of course. That kind of communication gives them an edge in business, Michael notes.

But they try not to let after-hours business talk dominate their home life. Usually, Michael is first to say “enough.”

“He tells me to turn it off,” Judi says with a smile.

The Lapins, who have been married for 10 years, used to struggle to find time for each other when they worked apart.

“We filled a big gap in our relationship by working together,” Judi says.

Technically, Michael is her boss--he runs the company, while she handles the marketing--but that doesn’t mean he tells her what to do. They have separate offices and treat each other as equals in the workplace as well as at home.

Working together wouldn’t work for married couples, Michael contends, if the relationship was the only reason for merging careers.

“Judi’s the person who would be doing her job whether or not we were married,” he says. “The danger is when working together is more of an accommodation to a marital need than a contribution in kind. If both people are independently competent at what they do, I think it can work.”